SANKT POLTEN  , an old

town and episcopal see of Austria, in Lower Austria, 38 m . W. of Vienna by rail . Pop . (1900) 14,510 . It is situated on the Traisen, a tributary of the Danube, and contains an interesting old abbey church, founded in 1030 and restored in 1266 and again at the beginning of the i8th century . There are several religious educational institutions in the town, and a military academy for engineers . The industries include cotton spinning and milling, as well as the manufacture of iron and hardware, and small arms . Sankt Polten was an inhabited place in the Roman period . An abbey dedicated to St Hippolytus was founded here in the 9th century, around which the town developed . It was called Fanum Sancti Hip polyti, from which, by corruption, the actual name is derived . It was surrounded with walls and fortifications in the time of Rudolf of Habsburg, but these were demolished in modern times . See Lampel, Urkundenbuch des Chorherrenstifts Sankt Polten (Wien, 1891-1901, 2 vols.) .